


Consequences

by DangerFloof



Series: A Two Parent, Two Bottles of Wine a Night Job [9]
Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Complete, Drama, Drama Llama, Drinking, Explicit Language, F/M, Games, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Teenagers, Thanksgiving Break, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2020-12-17 17:44:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21058433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangerFloof/pseuds/DangerFloof
Summary: Part two will be up next Tuesday.  See you then!





	1. ONE

“Have fun, Louise. And be safe!”

Louise pauses at the top of the apartment steps and turns to smirk at her mother. Linda, exhausted from the Black Friday rush, is curled on the couch next to Bob in front of the TV, with what she assures everyone is a “heart-healthy” glass of red wine in one hand and a chunk of dark chocolate in the other.

“Oh my God! Mom, I’m just going across the street to the Pestos.”

Of course, she knows that _plenty_ can happen on that trip, but Louise’s knife is tucked into her pocket, and Jake’s Vapes and Snakes has gone out of business, so the building next door is empty again. Rumor has it Jackie and Big Red, one of the other jell-o girls, are in talks to open a dispensary there, but Louise hasn’t mentioned it to her parents. Louise is whipped, having been pretty much run off her feet, but there’s no way in hell she’s missing the twin’s little gathering; her pride won’t let her.

“Yeah, well, remember you’re helping us open tomorrow, Miss Missy, so don’t be out too late.”

Louise rolls her eyes. “I read the schedule, mother. Actually, I wrote it.”

Linda opens her mouth, but Bob cuts her off. “See you tomorrow morning, Louise.”

Louise sighs dramatically and jogs down the stairs. At this point, in addition to taking care of their online marketing, she does pretty much all the administrative work for the business, including scheduling payments, though she can’t actually talk to the bank, creditors, or suppliers. The only reason she doesn’t do that too is because her parents refuse to put her on the accounts until she’s eighteen. (Don’t even start Louise on the injustice of _that_ one!) Add to it prep work, grillwork, and serving, and she’s pretty much up to her pits in the restaurant.

She locks the door behind her and pushes her irritation to the back of her mind. Head high, eyes and ears alert, hand gripping the switchblade in her pocket, she makes her way to the Pesto’s building. The pizzeria always stays open later than the Belcher’s place, which makes sense to Louise, as they have a bar, too; they’re still busy, and Louise is surprised the twins were able to ditch before close. She can see Jimmy Junior in the window, grimly bussing tables.

She knocks on their apartment door, and Ollie’s new girlfriend, Saffron Flowers, better known as Saffie, answers. “Hi, Louise!” the tiny girl envelops her in a crushing, patchouli-scented hug, which Louise doesn’t return.

“Saffie. How are you?”

“Great! We’re downstairs,” she adds, leading the way, as if Louise hasn’t been to the Pesto’s place a bazillion times before.

Louise is the last to arrive, and everyone’s already crowded around the big table, ready to play Cards Against Humanity. There’s pizza and chips on the pool table cover, along with a bowl of tofu and quinoa salad that pisses off Louise on sight. Jessica and Rudy are unloading bottles of soda from Fresh Feed bags.

“Louise!” Her friends great her in unison.

“My people!”

Saffie’s twin sister, Daffie, pulls her lips off of Andy’s long enough to smile and wave. Louise returns the gesture with a grin of her own; she likes Daffodil—Daffie is an apt nickname, in Louise’s opinion—better than Saffie, who irritates her for reasons she chooses not to think about too deeply.

Louise reaches into her pocket and passes around some cinnamon bombs and sour lemon edibles. She flips Jess the bird, their special greeting. Rather than return it, Jessica grunts. Rudy meets her eyes over his girlfriend’s shoulder and shakes his head, mouthing, _Mom problems_.

She nods. It seems that the closer Jessica comes to her…conversion ceremony, whatever you call it, to becoming a practicing Jew, the more she and her mother fight about it. Louise is as surprised as Jessica; Jess and her mother always got on so well Louise was actually a little jealous of their relationship, and you’d think Dr. Mom, being Jewish herself, would be more supportive.

“How was work, Louise?” Ollie asks as she flops into a chair across from him and Saffie.

“Ugh, do you have to ask? I ran my ass off from the buttcrack of dawn until now! You know the drill.”

Ollie nods. “I spilled a gallon of sauce all over the walk-in.”

“It took a half-hour to clean up!” Andy adds.

“At least you get tips,” Saffie supplies helpfully.

“Don’t you guys get a cut from the _karma jar_?” Louise can’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. She’s been in their Dad’s new-age shop, Mystik Treasures, just once, and still has the stink of incense, oils, and smelly candles stuck in her nose. Mr. “Call-me-Huck” Flowers, an old-school hippie who could pass for Jimi Hendrix’s reincarnation, seems like a nice enough man, just the sort of pushover adult she likes.

“A little,” Saffie shrugs. “It’s all good.”

“It is what it is,” Daffie supplies.

Louise shakes her head; she can never be so casual about money. “Just let it be, huh?”

Rudy grabs the white cards and begins to shuffle them. “I’ll be Card Czar!”

Jessica shoots Louise a warning look. The hippie-dippy twins are as oblivious as their boyfriends, but Jessica can smell the sarcasm. Louise sighs deeply. She doesn’t regret turning down Ollie, and part of her is glad he’s no longer shooting her wistful, longing looks. But it’s…_weird_…to see him so gloriously happy with Saffie. The girls moved from San Francisco just last month, and the Flower twins took one look at the Pesto twins and the rest is history. Louise isn’t jealous, exactly, but yeah, part of her misses the way he fawned over her. It's important to Louise that she's _first_ in the affections of those she loves best, which is part of the reason she knew she could never be with Ollie, as that role is occupied by his twin. But still, she can't quite ignore that it stings a little, the way he went from longing for her to slobbering all over Saffie in, like, a minute. It’s shitty and she knows it, but it’s the truth.

* * * * *

Zeke takes a look around the bar and nods; as expected, he’s the first one there. The guys are working closing shift, whereas he opened. They’re probably just finishing up the last details, taking out the trash and boxes, hanging up utensils, shit like that. He sits at the bar, orders a Bud Light, and pulls out his phone.

There’s a message from one of the sous chefs. As Zeke suspected, they’re running late. He figures they’re closer to thirty or even forty minutes away, rather than twenty—Bill always underestimates the time. Zeke scrolls through his phone, his face brightening at the new message from Louise. He responds quickly.

**Louise:** Going over to the Pestos. (Smirking kitty emoji)

**Zeke:** hAve fun (Two smirking kitty emojis)

The smirking kitty emoji is their private _I love you_, a precaution in case her parents see her phone. It’s also useful because Louise, always more comfortable with showing her feelings than speaking them, still struggles with the words. He sighs, hoping this is the last Thanksgiving he spends without her. Like Louise, Zeke has to work the weekend, then its back to school on Monday. He’ll be able to take some time off over Christmas break and drive down to Seymore’s Bay. He’ll graduate culinary school in mid-May, then Louise will graduate high school and turn eighteen within a two-week time span in early June. And then…

And then? Zeke wants so much! He’d love to ask her to move in with him, but he knows how tight she is with money, how committed she is to saving as much as possible so she doesn’t graduate college in debt. He can’t blame her, but—well, sometimes it feels like he’s trying to domesticate a feral cat. If he goes slowly and deliberately, he can pet and cuddle her; but if he moves too quickly, demands too much, she’ll hiss and scratch and spray piss all over everything.

Zeke smiles a little at his beer. If he’s careful, this time next year he’ll be able to introduce her to all his friends. Okay, she’ll still be too young to go to a bar (Mr. Fischoeder would have their heads if she used her Family ID for personal business) but they can hang out at a restaurant that serves drinks. He’ll toss her his keys—she won’t mind, she doesn’t like alcohol anyway, and she’s not some shy, retiring type who needs liquid encouragement to be a good time. Besides, she loves driving his truck, thrilled that it's size makes people actually get the hell out of her way, as opposed to when she’s in her family’s sad little clunker. He’ll stay sober enough that he can thank her properly for being his designated driver, maybe--if the Lord's willin' and the creek don't rise--in _their_ bed, at _their_ apartment.

The thought is so pleasant he spends several minutes on it, dressing it up in his imagination as he sips his beer. What would it be like to call out “Honey, I’m home!” and hear his own woman answer him? Naturally, Louise won’t be sweet about it; she’ll probably tell him to go away, or declare that she already gave at the office or whatever, but the expression in her beautiful dark eyes will give away the game. Zeke’s so deep in his daydream that he doesn’t spot a short woman on unsteady feet approaching him until it’s too late.

“Zeke! _There_ you are!”

He turns and internally groans. Lana wobbles over towards him, trailed by a couple of girlfriends apologizing to him with their eyes.

_Fuck._

* * * * *

Rudy holds up the black card. “Okay. So, ‘The school field trip was ruined by…?’ ”

“Mouth herpes!” Andy cries, throwing in the white card.

Jessica sighs, half-heartedly offering up her card. “Dick Cheney.”

Ollie can barely speak around his giggles, but eventually manages to sputter, “Assless chaps!”

“Pooping in the candy dish.” Saffie grins, clearly convinced she’s won.

“Gut-wrenching, explosive diarrhea!” Daffie sings out.

Louise leaps to her feet and waves her card over her head. “Firing a rifle in the air while balls deep in a squealing hog!”

“Louise it is,” Rudy declares over the laughter.

She takes a deep bow as she accept the black card and adds it to the little pile in front of her. Louise is tied with Saffie now; Saffie doesn’t know it, but she and Louise are locked in fierce competition. Granted, everyone’s a winner when you play Cards Against Humanity, so long as you’re a little sick and twisted, and keep your sense of humor, but Louise has to_ win_.

The door to the basement opens. All of them are a little high now, and scramble to hide the wrappers to the edibles Louise brought. Jimmy Junior appears, the dark bags under his eyes and strawberry-blond stubble around his jaw speaking to his exhaustion. He carries a couple of six-packs in his hands.

“Hey, thought I’d join you,” he smiles.

Louise cracks her back while the others crowd around Jimmy, relieving him of his burden. Ollie twists off the caps for the girls. Rudy, who can’t drink the beer because it isn’t gluten-free, helps himself to more of the tofu and quinoa salad Daffie and Saffie brought with them.

Jimmy brings Louise a bottle. “Want one?”

Her smile is forced, and doesn’t make it to her eyes; she can forgive him for being shitty to Tina when they were in school together—that was a long time ago—but she can’t overlook the way he stood her sister up at their parent’s Christmas party, no matter what Zeke says in his defense. As far as she’s concerned, Jimmy Junior’s a garden-variety douchebag, and nothing she’s witnessed since he moved back home has changed her opinion. “No thanks, I don’t drink.”

“Wow, really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“I didn’t know you’re straight-edge.”

Louise narrows her eyes slightly, liking neither his tone nor his smirk, irritated by the fact that he’s standing a tiny bit too close for comfort. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a cinnamon bomb. “I party,” she says flatly, tossing him the candy.

He catches it easily. Louise, remembering Tina’s impression of his octopus-on-a windmill running technique, is impressed in spite of herself. “I wondered where the twins got these,” he mutters, unwrapping it and popping it in his mouth.

She nods, satisfied she made her point. Not that Jimmy Junior’s opinion means crap to her, but Louise is glad she won this round.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two will be up next Tuesday. See you then!


	2. TWO

Zeke takes one look at Lana’s flushed face and glassy eyes and knows he’s in trouble. He stopped visiting strip clubs months ago, partly to save money, but mostly reasoning there’s no point to getting all worked up when he has no place to go, so he’s scarcely seen her at all since the spring. It took her three months to stop sending him random, “casual” texts, saying hello, asking how he’s been. He always answered, albeit few days later, polite but short responses, obvious brush-offs to anyone less determined than Lana. Then, out of the blue, she sent him a text last week, long, rambling, full of misspellings and grammar errors even Zeke could spot, obviously a drunken memo asking him out. He didn’t answer at all, reasoning that the best, most generous way to respond to such a thing was pretend it didn’t happen.

Lana, awkwardly climbing up on the stool next to his, her skirt riding dangerously high on her thighs, obviously disagrees.

“I just want. To. Know. Why.” She's clearly at the bad decision making, over-enunciating stage of drunkenness.

Zeke shoots her friends a desperate look over her head, his eyes _begging_ them to step in and save Lana from further humiliation. She intercepts the look.

“No,” she says flatly, waving her finger at him. “_No!_ You fucked me n’ ditched me, and I wanna know why!”

A few people are watching the drama unfold. Zeke sighs; he’s not embarrassed for himself—she’s the one making a public scene, not him—but he does wonder if it’s possible to die from second-hand embarrassment. He offers her his most charming smile, and thickens his drawl.

“Now Lana, we just had a li’l fun together one night. That’s all it was. Ain’t no reason to go on like this. Why don’cha go off with yer friends an’—“

“Uh-uh! You flirted with me _for months_, then dumped me as soon as ya got innta my pants! I thought you were better than that, Zeke Smythe!”

He knows she’s right. Worse yet, there’s nothing he can say in his defense that won’t make him sound like a cad and make her look like a fool. What’s he going to do, tell her the truth?

_“Well, ya see sugar, I flirted with ya cause yer cute, and I fucked ya cause I could. Oh, yeah, and I was tryin’ to forget that the girl I love—she’s almost half yer age, by the way—was out screwin’ some other guy. You were an all right distraction, but ya ain’t good enough to keep around. Sorry!”_

Oh yeah, _that’d_ go over _real_ well!

Now several people are watching. A woman calls out, “You tell him, girl!” More than one man cuts him a sympathetic glance.

Zeke can feel his temper rising. _Damn it_, all he wanted was a drink out with friends, to bitch good-naturedly about work with his buddies! He slaps a ten on the bar, tells the bartender to keep the tip.

“I can see ya ain’t havin’ a good night,” he says quietly. He’s proud of himself; like Grandma June would say, just cause a woman ain’t bein’ a lady doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be a gentleman. “Hope ya feel better soon.”

Zeke stands and walks past her towards the door.

“Oh no you don’t! Donchoo walk away from me! Fuckin’ asshole--!”

There’s a scraping, a thump, a howl. Zeke turns to see Lana on the floor, a crying, drunken mess still cussing him out. She looks up at him with wet, tragic eyes as her friends try to pull her up to her feet.

He resists the urge to help her, knowing that would make the situation worse. Instead, he looks her up and down with the coldest eyes he can manage. “Good night, Lana,” he says with finality, and walks out the door.

* * * * *

“Okay,” Louise holds up the black card. “ ‘When I was tripping on acid, blank turned into blank.’ ”

Everyone in the room is squanchy enough for all answers to be funny, but Jimmy Junior’s wins hands-down.

“When I was tripping on acid, a cooler full of organs turned into free samples!”

Rudy laughs so hard he needs his inhaler.

“J-Ju, this is for you,” Louise manages to sputter around her own cackling laughter. She hands him the black card.

Seated next to her—crowded closer than Louise, who values her personal space, would prefer—his smile is bright as his fingers brush hers. She responds with a strained grimace.

Jessica catches her eye and snorts into her beer.

_Ugh._ Up until that point, Louise could pretend that she wasn’t seeing what was glaringly obvious. God, Jimmy’s _disgusting_! After all the crap he pulled on her sister…and she _knows_ he knows about her and Zeke! Okay, granted, he probably doesn’t have the full picture; she and Zeke try to downplay their relationship as much as possible, even among the informed, but _still_.

“Let’s take a break,” she says, standing up.

The suggestion is agreeable to everyone. Daffie shows Andy some yoga stretches for his shoulders. Louise watches them contentedly, enjoying Andy’s radiant happiness with an almost maternal air. Daffie, dressed like her identical twin in a lumpy homemade oversized sweater and jeggings, is very pretty, with the almond-shaped eyes and delicate build they inherited from their Japanese mother, her springy hair smoothed into two adorable Afro-puffs at the crown of her head. Louise knows Daffie and Andy are sexually active, since she’s the one who sold him the condoms, an interaction that would have been painfully awkward with anyone else, given the circumstances. But Andy, oblivious as always, was so eager, so chirpily excited as he asked for tips and pointers, that Louise couldn’t even work up a blush.

Louise finds herself between Jessica and Saffie at the impromptu buffet table. She piles pizza and chips on her plate, unconcerned about the carbs for once, confident she’ll work them off—and then some—tomorrow and Sunday.

“Their brother really likes you,” Saffie says brightly to Louise.

Louise glances down at her. She’s used to being the tallest girl in the room, often taller than most of the guys too, but the Flowers twins are _tiny_, barely five feet tall, and they make Louise feel like a lumbering giant.

“Aren’t you _lucky_, Louise?” Jess grins.

Louise shudders.

“Well, he’s a little old,” Saffie frowns. “But I know you like older guys, Louise. To each her own!”

Louise stares at Saffie, mute with horror. Does everyone in town _except_ her parents know her business?

“Oh, am I not supposed to know about…? Sorry, Ollie didn’t say. My lips are sealed.” Saffie mimes zipping and locking her lips.

Jessica beats a retreat over to her boyfriend, loudly agreeing to fulfill her promise to try the vegan salad.

Louise hasn't seen either of the Flowers twins look the slightest bit embarrassed, so it’s strange and oddly touching to watch Saffie fiddle with the pizza spatula.

“I know it’s kind of weird for you, I mean, Ollie and me,” Saffie says, unable to look over at Louise.

“It…kind of is,” she admits grudgingly. “Not that I want him or anything,” she adds quickly. “I’m happy for the two of you!” As soon as she says it, Louise knows it’s true; she _is_ happy that Ollie is so gloriously, unapologetically thrilled with his new girlfriend.

“It’s just sort of…weird and stuff.” Louise shrugs. “I’ll get used to it.”

Saffie relaxes. “I know you’re one of his oldest friends. I hope we can be friends, too.”

Louise looks down into her eager face. Something about Saffie’s artless directness appeals to Louise. “I think we can be. So long as you don’t bogart all the barbecue potato chips!”

Saffie laughs and passes her the bag.

* * * * *

Zeke reclines on his bed with his ear buds, trying to ignore the rhythmic thumping of Raul and Mindy going to town in the room next to his. He’s watching a TED talk on his phone about body language. Zeke never liked to read and doesn’t do it well, so, consequently, always disliked school. But he does like learning new things, and listening to short lectures about stuff that interests him never feels like boring education.

His mind keeps circling back to Lana, crying pathetically on the bar floor. He’s still not sure if he’s the asshole here or not. After all, he repeatedly attempted to brush her off politely, and tonight he tried to enlist help, then walk away, before she could make a total fool of herself. Surely that counts for _something!_ Zeke keeps reminding himself that he never promised her a relationship, of course it ain’t _his_ fault she expected more, right?

But while that’s true, it’s not _the truth_. Zeke knows damn good and well that he flirted up a storm with her, invited her to tell him a lot about her personal life, and she drew a logical conclusion based on his behavior. Naturally, she thought he was serious about her! At best, he created a grey area, and Zeke loathes half-assed, wishy-washy behavior, especially when he’s the one doing it.

Not that it excuses the clinging or the drunken confrontation, but it sure explains it. Between his natural charisma and the Southern charm he learned as a kid, he’s a social force to be reckoned with, and Lana simply didn’t have the experience to read him correctly. Plus…well, she’s 31, a good retirement age for a stripper, and he doesn’t think she has any other work skills. And there he was, an ambitious, decent looking, likable guy--if he says so himself--undeterred by her profession or child...she might well have seen him as her last hope.

Zeke groans and pauses the video he long ago stopped watching anyway. _Fuck_, he feels like a heel! Thank God he’s done with hookups and sidepieces and all that shit. How he managed to win the love of a smart, feisty, beautiful thing like Louise Belcher he doesn’t know, but he’s determined to make sure she never regrets entrusting him with her heart. He sends Louise a text:

**Zeke:** Call whn u git in. (Smirking kitty)

* * * * *

Louise, sitting on her yoga mat in the basement of her parent’s building, hopes she isn’t calling too late; it’s after midnight, and she knows Zeke has to open tomorrow morning, like she does.

He answers on the third ring, his voice a bit drowsy. “_Heyyyyy_, babygirl.”

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“Li’l bit, but that’s okay. I wanted to hear yer voice.” Actually, he _needed_ to hear it; just talking to her assures him that he isn’t a sack of crap.

“Ugh, you’re gonna put my ears in a diabetic coma,” she grumbles, smiling. “I’m… glad to hear your voice, too, you know.”

His happiness practically radiates through the phone. “Just a few more months n’ you can hear it anytime.”

“A _few_ more months? You mean _seven_.”

“Well, we’ve made it over a year n’ a half. Seven more months ain’t nuthin’.”

“Mmm.”

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“Nothing’s _wrong_,” Louise snorts.

“C’mon on, honey,” Zeke wheedles. “What’ve I told ya about _talkin’_ to me?”

“It’s just…I…I don’t like the way our names are in everyone’s mouths.”

Zeke sighs. Word of their relationship has spread farther than he ever imagined it would; how her parents haven’t heard about it yet is a mystery to him. “I know. Did something happen tonight? Does someone’s ass need my boot?”

Louise snorts, her mood lifting. Just knowing he’d kick anyone’s ass at her request makes her feel better. But then her smile falls, remembering whose ass she’d like kicked.

_ Jimmy sighed dramatically and stared over her shoulder with a far-away look in his honey brown eyes. “It’s hard, living with my family after being on my own for so long.”_

_ “Mmm.” Louise scanned the room for a reasonably polite escape. But everyone else was paired off, canoodling, abandoning Louise to this tool._

_ “I really loved living in Trenton. I was finally getting some good feedback.” His smile was smug. “You wouldn’t understand, but it isn’t easy, finding someone who appreciates your art. Not everyone knows how to direct me.”_

_ Oh, he failed because he was misunderstood, not because he’s a stubborn, self-absorbed hack! Having decided his bullshit was unworthy of a rational response, she thought it’d be fun to fuck with him a little bit. _

_ “Gosh, really, Jimmy? Well, tell me all about it.”_

_ He needed no further invitation. After carefully defining busking, he told her all about his experiences dancing for tips at random street corners, even breaking out the moves that earned him a ten dollar bill from a guy that was probably Jeff Bridges. Or maybe a homeless guy who just looked like Jeff Bridges from _The Big Lebowski_, he’s not sure._

_ “I just think it’s important to dance what you feel,” Jimmy explained earnestly. “I’m not a chorus kind of guy, I hate dancing a routine, with a group.” _

_ “Yeah, I bet you’re a great soloist. Lots of practice there, huh?” _

_ The innuendo sailed over his head. Jimmy Junior leaned in closely, his eyes on her tits. “It’s called the star, not the soloist.”_

Louise sighs. “Nah. Saffie—Ollie’s girlfriend—knows, and it just reminded me that we’re kind of an open secret.” She plays with the aglet of her skull-print shoelace, one of the little thinking-of-you gifts Zeke occasionally sends her through Mudflap. “I mean, Jess and Rudy know, of course, because I told them, and Ollie and Andy figured it out, and apparently told their girlfriends, and—do you think Jimmy knows?”

“J-Ju? Well, yeah, a li’l bit. He kinda caught onta somethin’ this summer, so I gave him the broad strokes—not the details, he don’t know how close we are, but…wait, I told ya all this before.”

She cringes at the suspicion in his voice. “Did you? I forgot.”

“Yeah, after that afternoon on the beach, when Darryl ran screamin’ from the dead octopus that washed up.” He chuckles ruefully. “I just couldn’t keep my eyes off that ass of yers, I guess.”

“It _is_ worth admiring,” she smiles. She remembers that afternoon well; she wore a little grey string bikini, and Zeke spent a lot of time massaging sunscreen on her back and shoulders, whispering naughty things in her ears when he thought nobody was paying attention. He’d never looked so broad and tough to her before, hairy, heavy with muscles, his face almost handsome, radiating a self-assured strength that made it hard for her not to jump him in broad daylight. “I’m just trying to keep track of who knows and who doesn’t.”

They talk for a while more, but she stays in the Louise Lair for nearly an hour after they hang up. It’s too late at night to box, she knows from long experience that the thump of the bag and rattling of the chain would wake her father up, but she lifts a little, does some light abs work. It helps clear her head.

Ultimately, she decides not to say anything to Zeke about Jimmy Junior hitting on her. As satisfying as it would be to watch Zeke pummel the smug asshole to a pulp, she knows it would hurt Zeke to the core to know his former bestie betrayed him like that. It also seems kind of useless, since she got the strong vibe that Jimmy wasn’t so much interested in _her_ as much as he was an easy lay.

_Jimmy leaned against the wall, arms crossed in an attempt to look cool or whatever. “So, you’re a party girl, huh?”_

_ Louise narrowed her eyes as she looked up at him. A faint, contemptuous sneer curled her lip. “So what? You gonna narc on me?”_

_ He flashed a rakish smile that Louise knew would have melted Tina’s heart; as far as she was concerned, it just made him look extra-punchable. “Nah, I’m just saying, if you ever want to party together, I’m down.”_

_ Louise didn’t try to hide her disgust as she turned her back to him and exited the party, citing tiredness and the need to get up early the next day._

Louise pulls on her hoodie angrily; this is the touchy-feely side of adulting, isn’t it? She remembers when she thought being a grownup just meant unlimited freedom and making lots of money. How naïve! Adulting, she’s realized over the past year, also means factoring other people’s stupid feelings into her decisions. As irritated as she is, she has to laugh a little at herself: _Damn, I must really love the lunkhead, if I'm willing to pass up an opportunity for violent revenge for his sake._

Jimmy's probably just bored to tears, looking for something to break the monotony of work and school, and assumed that because she’s young, she must be dumb, and see all older guys as equally worthy of her time. But really, that kind of attitude says way more about him than it does her, doesn’t it? Just because she’s involved with an older guy doesn’t mean she’s easy, as many guys at school can attest—she’s said ‘No’ to plenty. 

Louise chuckles grimly. Well, if that’s true, he’s an even bigger idiot than she thought. Still, an uncomfortable thought worms its way through her mind—is that how all the guys see her? Do they think she’s some malleable kid who will hop onto _any_ older dick just because she enjoys one _specific_ older dick? 

It’s funny; sex with Zeke never seemed weird in any way. She’s known him forever, it just seemed to be a natural evolution of their friendship. The fact that he’s almost six years older—he was held back in third grade, something about poor reading skills and behavior problems—adds a little spice, but is only relevant to Louise because everyone else makes a big damn deal about it. But the idea of fucking Jimmy Junior, even if Zeke weren’t in the picture, is disgusting. What’s the quote? Something about a guy liking high school girls, because he gets older, but they stay the same age?

Louise shudders. There’s something gross, lecherous, predatory about Jimmy Junior that’s entirely absent with Zeke. She can’t put her finger on it, and maybe most adults wouldn’t spot the difference, but it’s there. Zeke would never exploit or take advantage of her, and not just because she’d gut-punch him if he tried.

_It’s because he’s a gentleman_. Louise rolls her eyes. It’s corny as hell, but he _is_ a gentleman, albeit not a traditional one, and the more she’s exposed to players and fuckboys, the more she can appreciate his old-fashioned ideas. Worst of all, she can totally see how a girl—a stupid, air-headed girl, lacking sense and discernment—might fall for Jimmy Junior’s game. Hell, Tina spent _years_ panting after the jerkwad! After all, Jimmy is good looking (in his own way), has charm (of a sort), and projects a tragic sadboy air that’s just _catnip_ to a certain kind of girl.

Louise shudders. Well, whatever you say about Zeke, he knows who and what he is, he takes responsibility for himself, and he’s not some pathetic fixer-upper project like Jimmy Junior. Smiling a little, she bounces up the stairs, finally ready to go to bed, the secret of her love tucked away safely in a corner of her dark heart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Everyone,
> 
> First, thank you so much for reading, liking, commenting, and so on. I really appreciate it.
> 
> This is a bit of a surprise story. I was working on a longer one, when I realized that it was clunky and exposition heavy because I was skipping too much time. The next one in this series is the first Belcher story I wrote, "Blunt". I plan to make minor edits to it so it's a better fit for the series, but I won't make any major rewrites. 
> 
> Keep your eyes open for "Going Medieval". Description: Hear ye, hear ye! Thou art cordially invited to attend Bog Harbor’s first Renaissance Pleasure Faire. 
> 
> Yours,  
DangerFloof


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